William Ernest Henley

Allegro Maestoso

Spring winds that blowAs over leagues of myrtle-blooms and may;Bevies of spring clouds trooping slow,Like matrons heavy bosomed and aglowWith the mild and placid pride of increase! Nay,What makes this insolent and comely streamOf appetence, this freshet of desire(Milk from the wild breasts of the wilful Day!),Down Piccadilly dance and murmur and gleamIn genial wave on wave and gyre on gyre?Why does that nymph unparalleled splash and churnThe wealth of her enchanted urnTill, over-billowing all betweenHer cheerful margents, grey and living green,It floats and wanders, glittering and fleeing,An estuary of the joy of being?Why should the lovely leafage of the ParkTouch to an ecstasy the act of seeing?- Sure, sure my paramour, my Bride of Brides,Lingering and flushed, mysteriously abidesIn some dim, eye-proof angle of odorous dark,Some smiling nook of green-and-golden shade,In the divine conviction robed and crownedThe globe fulfils his immemorial roundBut as the marrying-place of all things made!

There is no man, this deifying day,But feels the primal blessing in his blood.There is no woman but disdains -The sacred impulse of the MayBrightening like sex made sunshine through her veins -To vail the ensigns of her womanhood.None but, rejoicing, flaunts them as she goes,Bounteous in looks of her delicious best,On her inviolable quest:These with their hopes, with their sweet secrets those,But all desirable and frankly fair,As each were keeping some most prosperous tryst,And in the knowledge went imparadised!For look! a magical influence everywhere,Look how the liberal and transfiguring airWashes this inn of memorable meetings,This centre of ravishments and gracious greetings,Till, through its jocund loveliness of lengthA tidal-race of lust from shore to shore,A brimming reach of beauty met with strength,It shines and sounds like some miraculous dream,Some vision multitudinous and agleam,Of happiness as it shall be evermore!

Praise God for givingThrough this His messenger among the daysHis word the life He gave is thrice-worth living!For Pan, the bountiful, imperious Pan -Not dead, not dead, as impotent dreamers feigned,But the gay genius of a million MaysRenewing his beneficent endeavour! -Still reigns and triumphs, as he hath triumphed and reignedSince in the dim blue dawn of timeThe universal ebb-and-flow began,To sound his ancient music, and prevails,By the persuasion of his mighty rhyme,Here in this radiant and immortal streetLavishly and omnipotently as everIn the open hills, the undissembling dales,The laughing-places of the juvenile earth.For lo! the wills of man and woman meet,Meet and are moved, each unto each endeared,As once in Eden's prodigal bowers befell,To share his shameless, elemental mirthIn one great act of faith: while deep and strong,Incomparably nerved and cheered,The enormous heart of London joys to beatTo the measures of his rough, majestic song;The lewd, perennial, overmastering spellThat keeps the rolling universe ensphered,And life, and all for which life lives to long,Wanton and wondrous and for ever well.